So which way will it go? Will sentient machines replace humans as the dominant form of life on this piece of rock or will the humans who can afford it become cyborgs like the borg and distance themselves from the inferior non-enhanced ones? Or will we get new immortal ex-human cyborg gods or guardians from the richest people who would act as "benevolent" dictators for the rest?

Well honestly, I wasn't going as far as that.

Sure, we might get sentient machines faster than I expect, or humans might augment themselves and become cyborgs (i.e transhumanism) to keep up... but for me, those scenarios are more science fiction than fact right now.

I'm definitely not saying they won't happen! It's just not something I find too likely within 20 years or so.

My point was much smaller than that. I'm talking about simple machines as tools. Not sentient, not those which can think for themselves. But machines which can be trained to perform jobs and replace humans at 90% or more of all jobs. Of course, a small elite of humanity will still have jobs, mainly to train the machines to do the other tasks. (even developing new machines might be done by said machines themselves, but of course humans will still "teach" the machines manually)

I mean, think of it as a shift in industrialization. A shift where humans are not needed anymore because machines can do every common (mass production & research) task... and the only thing humans will still be needed for, is to train those machines. Or supercomputers.

The machines themselves are definitely still tools, not sentient. But think about the human population. Do you honestly think we'll need 7 billion (or more) people to train these machines? Heck we won't even have so many supercomputers to begin with. What will the majority of the population do? They'll starve to death or become slaves for the "masters" who control all means of production (who invested in the supercomputers before they became the big deal, e.g like Google).

By "slaves" I mean of course they still choose to do so, but in reality, it's not much of a choice when the alternative is to starve to death, isn't it? Seems quite forced.

Obviously, if machines become sentient, then humanity is 100% useless, even for teaching them (because they will self-teach themselves). I just don't find it so likely within 20 years. I'm more down-to-earth I guess

I mean, think of it as a shift in industrialization. A shift where humans are not needed anymore because machines can do every common (mass production & research) task... and the only thing humans will still be needed for, is to train those machines. Or supercomputers.

The machines themselves are definitely still tools, not sentient. But think about the human population. Do you honestly think we'll need 7 billion (or more) people to train these machines? Heck we won't even have so many supercomputers to begin with.

I kind of see the drop in population growth in the West as a natural adaptation or a response to the situation. Which is I find the economists' idea of "let's bring in more people to maintain economic growth by tempting them with a higher standard of living" when we don't even have jobs for the natives who can be more productive by for example being able to speak the language and not needing a generation or two of integration. Yes, perhaps on the long term bringing in more people might pay itself back somehow but that would require jobs and the jobs are going away or disappearing completely. And you might go bankrupt in the meanwhile trying to offer everyone a standard of living you can't afford because the jobs have already been going away. But then again that's our current form of capitalism for which we need to find a better functioning and more future-proof replacement.

Furs wrote:

What will the majority of the population do? They'll starve to death or become slaves for the "masters" who control all means of production (who invested in the supercomputers before they became the big deal, e.g like Google).

By "slaves" I mean of course they still choose to do so, but in reality, it's not much of a choice when the alternative is to starve to death, isn't it? Seems quite forced.

Add "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" and the future might start looking rather bleak. Let's just hope someone creates a real working version of the Matrix and the excess population can be plugged into it with everyone ending up somewhat happy while some of the people outside it could act as the caretakers or something maintaining the system.

Furs wrote:

Obviously, if machines become sentient, then humanity is 100% useless, even for teaching them (because they will self-teach themselves). I just don't find it so likely within 20 years. I'm more down-to-earth I guess

I'm just contemplating the possibilities and not thinking about what is short-term or long-term at all.

But would humanity actually be 100% useless? If someone said that the answer is yes then I'd have to ask in what sense.

My personal experience - I've always worked, I always will work; and it has nothing to do with money, nor creating a preferred style to my life. I know the human form evolved in a context of activity (mental and physical), and realizing it's potential requires exploration in that context.

Actually increasing the quality of life for humanity is tricky. Having intelligent people without the means for survival is certainly a recipe for disaster. Isn't this basic income just a temporary solution to reduce crime? What kind of social environment are we creating for people to live in?

Ideally, I person should be able to drop into any social center and begin living a fulfilling life. That might even be an accurate measure of society - how long it takes. We have a long way to go.

My personal experience - I've always worked, I always will work; and it has nothing to do with money, nor creating a preferred style to my life. I know the human form evolved in a context of activity (mental and physical), and realizing it's potential requires exploration in that context.

Yep, can't develop skills nor a craft without working on it any more than one can become wise without thinking.

I once suggested on some online forum that the right to work should be one of the basic human rights. I was called an idiot. I didn't ask why. Just thought that the person in question was perhaps of the religiously capitalist kind who thinks that suggesting that everyone should have something meaningful to do must be some sort of closet socialist. Funny though. The religion that the supernatural invisible hand guiding the market will somehow fix any problem given to it.

bitRAKE wrote:

Actually increasing the quality of life for humanity is tricky. Having intelligent people without the means for survival is certainly a recipe for disaster. Isn't this basic income just a temporary solution to reduce crime? What kind of social environment are we creating for people to live in?

What usually happens when you take away peoples' hope for a future worth living? Probably nothing good will come out of it. Was it some economist or who cares what kind of a scholar who suggested a number which was in the end named after him and which describes roughly how big the wealth gap usually can get at maximum before a revolution will start brewing. Can't remember the details. Perhaps some catholic scholar. Not even sure he was an English speaking person. Might be on Wikipedia but I can't remember which terms to look for.

bitRAKE wrote:

Ideally, I person should be able to drop into any social center and begin living a fulfilling life. That might even be an accurate measure of society - how long it takes. We have a long way to go.

Yep, haven't arrived at a society like in Roddenberry's Star Trek yet where money doesn't exist and everyone lives just to better themselves. Then again perhaps getting there would require solving the problem of limited resources and the current economic system encouraging misuse of those resources. I wonder what was the name of that other figure measuring the point of no return of when we've run out of both resources and time to fix our problems. I mean the idea of humanity spending all its time and resources on trying to come up with smaller smartphones while they should be putting more resources into how to for example turn seawater into drinking water on mass scale. I mean there are already wars being fought over water if I've understood correctly.

i view it as a system let population survive when job opportunities reach near 0.

How will the system survive when the means of production are massive and complex enough (big robotic factories) to have big running and maintenance costs which can only be covered in a sustainable way in long term by having a mass market but with all of the money constantly concentrating in fewer hands the masses will have no money to buy anything other than the bare necessities? Basic income won't pay for a lot of luxuries will it. Manufacturers can try to build products to break sooner and in that way increase demand but if people can no longer afford to buy a new smartphone or a new car every few years?

sleepsleep wrote:

nyrtzi wrote:

But would humanity actually be 100% useless? If someone said that the answer is yes then I'd have to ask in what sense.

like what we did to laboratory rats, we do experiments, tests them,
if AI could reach sentient, we will become laboratory rats.

Why? Why turn us into lab rats? For what purpose? In the Matrix movies the machines turned humankind into a power source. In other movies the machines want to exterminate our species.

Why is no one considering the possibility of peaceful co-existence? I might not mind marrying a robot. Oh well. At least I might find it preferrable to marrying a human female. I'm half-joking of course.

Key limiting factor is the capitalistic system - the concern is how to create external wealth within a single human lifetime. Rarely, are infrastructure decisions made by individuals with mindfulness beyond their own lifetime. Having children or longevity within a community can extend one's sense of responsibility.

Within my local community I see a deepening of this sense of responsibility. Sometimes I think it's just my awareness that has changed, but in actuality both have changed. There really isn't a way to go back either - we need new solutions for this new consciousness.

I don't think we need longer lives, AI, or robots to start making choices of a more timeless nature. Just being open to change, and sharing with others is a good first step.

nyrtzi,
i want to share a little bit of what i thought,
gamer like high score and there is never a maximum score for them,
they don't care if poor people having the ability to buy, they will offer 24 months interest free credit, or etc mechanism to enslave you, your families members, your kids, your grand children and so on,

it takes those who "having the power", "to do the right thing attitude" to tune society into positive and peaceful environment, countries and government are basically under their control already.

we don't know what kind of "standard" they want to implement on us, they could treat us like human, or less than human.

nyrtzi wrote:

Why? Why turn us into lab rats? For what purpose?

let assume for a while, you are god with absolute power on everything, what would you do?

nyrtzi wrote:

Why is no one considering the possibility of peaceful co-existence?

most human is very violent, conflicting kind of animals,
they could be peaceful for 100 years, and they could rage in 10 minutes to destroy everything

Friedman was for a negative income tax--at least in his early years. That's similar to the idea of a basic income I guess. There's a video on youtube where the head of Estonia is said to have implemented a flat tax based on Friedman's book Freedom to Choose.

No, small companies shut down because they are not good at what they do. If they were good, people would be very happy to buy their services/products.

There is always plenty of money around if one is smart is prepared to work for it. If one simply slacks off and expects money to come to them for nothing then of course they will have no money and be poor (and probably complain about it).

Except when startup costs (barrier to entry) are artificially raised by regulation. But that problem is solved by deregulation, not more regulation, whether that more regulation is in the form of redistribution or not.

But in general, yes, there is an optimal size of firm in a given market under given market conditions. Rockefeller and Standard Oil is a great example of this. He tried to corner the market and blew a lot of money for no good reason doing it. He topped out at 90% market share, but he had already fallen to 60% *before* he was trust busted. Firms lower transaction cost between those in the firm, so they increase efficiency in that way. But they decrease direct feedback from the market (e.g. it's impossible to directly measure the value added by most members of the firm), decreasing efficiency in that way. They will only be able to sustain a size such that the decrease in transaction costs is greater than the loss of knowledge.

"welcome to capitalism enslavement program and brainwash session, always living in fear,
fear of having nothing, not enough, losing what we got, fear of changes, fear of health issues, buy insurance, buy extended warranty, always subliminal messages to instill fear and more fear"

This is absolute bullshit. What do you think would happen to you in a state of nature? You really think that you'd have nothing to fear? You think that you would no fear of loss? No fear of health? Living is constant fight against dying. That is actually how the fucking world is. You run from the predator, find your prey, kill it, eat it, find a safe place to sleep for the night, and hope you wake to see the morrow. We dress it up now. Now, someone else does the killing of the plants and animals, and we do something else, and then we go to a fucking store. We trade our time and labor (which is what money is) for someone else's time and labor. You don't want to work to stay alive? Fuck you. I have zero sympathy. The only reason that you have a variety of choices in what you eat, a variety in health care options, a variety in choices of where you will live is because of this capitalist market system. In the Western world, the number one problem we face is that we are all eating ourselves to death. This is because of capitalism. In those nations that have chosen to turn their backs on capitalism, we see deprivation. There is no greater contrast I can offer. You sit there and say: "this time it will be different!" Do you really think that Venezuela didn't think that? Do you really think that Cuba, Vietnam, the DPRK, Cambodia, etc... didn't think the same thing?

You want to know why things suck and why the rich get richer? People like you call out for more government. You call for regulation. Who do you think writes regulation? Do you really think it's the congress? You think they write a thousand bills a year? No. The mega corps write and then the police power of the state ensures that the regulation is enforced. This raises the barrier to entry, and eliminates competition. This isn't capitalism. This is actually fascism (at least according to the Fascist Manifesto). In the boomer college years, minimum wage was negligible and yet was enough for the average boomer to go to college with very little debt, have a place to live, and a car. Why did that change? First, inflation. The government left the gold standard in '71 which allowed them to simply print the money to pay for endless wars and government expansion. When inflation hits, wages lag price increases. Why else? Government subsidy of education has distorted the price signal the same as it has in health care. When their is a middle man between buyer and seller demand will rise or lower from perceived low or high cost that doesn't truly exist. Colleges can charge whatever they want because they know that you can get a loan from the government for almost any amount to attend school. For cars, you can pretty much say that an ever increasing set of regulations on fuel economy and safety have increased the cost of the automobile dramatically, but you can also point to subsidy of oil companies and the protectionism of oil companies, and wars fought for oil companies... You sit there complaining about the effects of corrupt governments and then you turn to that same government for salvation.

As for automation, automation only happens when the cost of human labor rises to a point that is no longer affordable. Automation will not occur in every industry. The cost of automation is insanely high. $15 minimum wage with no increase in productivity? Okay, McDonalds is going to replace people with machines. They are already paying to have the food created and shipped around the world, and to have boxes made and shipped, and to have utensils made and shipped, etc... They cannot afford to pay more and still offer a burger for $4; the profit margin just ain't that high. People are so scared of the fucking machines. Why did England see the industrial revolution before the USA? Why did Rome have a working steam engine in the library of Alexandria but never have an industrial revolution? Slavery. There was no need to automate if you had humans whom you could own. Why has everything not already been automated? Relative cost.

An automated factory can cost over $1 billion dollars. There are not many companies that could actually afford that price tag. So, your iPhone and iPad are assembled largely by hand. We are also going to have to admit that man is a long way off from real AI, so anything that requires creativity is going to remain human providence. Further, there will always be a time lag between the creation of an industry and the automation of that same industry.

Now, the hard economic reality of your socialist dream... WHERE DO YOU THINK THAT THE MONEY FOR UBI WILL COME FROM?! If you print it, every dollar is worth less than it was before you received that money. You'll be Zimbabwe before too long. Congrats. If you tax it from the "wealthy" you will see those wealthy people leave. You have this mistaken notion that the rich will tolerate this bullshit. They won't. There is nothing more mobile than a rich person and his/her money. They are already rich. They do not need to work, and they have the money to live anywhere in luxury. More importantly, the money you take from them leaves the banks, leaves the stocks, leaves the investments. Companies like Amazon require that money to be in the stock market as they do not turn profits, and there are many companies in the same boat. Growth will slow if you stop the engine of investment. Every piece of the economy affects all of the other pieces. If you distort the price of anything you will completely destroy that industry. In this case, you are artificially thinking that you can change the supply and demand of money as though you know better than the rest of the people in your country whose economic actions affect that price of that same money. Go fuck yourself you pompous piece of shit. You are not a G-d, and you cannot simply determine what is better for others.

The whole idea of capitalism is that no one can say what another ought to do, what is best for another human, or how another human ought to live. So, we allow people to do as they wish so long as they do not initiate the use of force against another, and we trade our time and labor with one another value for value. As all of those transactions are voluntary we know that all are better off, as otherwise they'd not have made the trade.

EDIT: sorry for any perceived hostility, just speaking my mind and I have a rather foul mouth.

As for automation, automation only happens when the cost of human labor rises to a point that is no longer affordable. Automation will not occur in every industry. The cost of automation is insanely high. $15 minimum wage with no increase in productivity? Okay, McDonalds is going to replace people with machines. They are already paying to have the food created and shipped around the world, and to have boxes made and shipped, and to have utensils made and shipped, etc... They cannot afford to pay more and still offer a burger for $4; the profit margin just ain't that high. People are so scared of the fucking machines. Why did England see the industrial revolution before the USA? Why did Rome have a working steam engine in the library of Alexandria but never have an industrial revolution? Slavery. There was no need to automate if you had humans whom you could own. Why has everything not already been automated? Relative cost.

Because costs go down. And they don't go down at the same pace. They go down at an exponential rate. What took 100 years will now take 10 years, then 1 year, and so on. This exponential growth is what humans, biological creatures, CANNOT KEEP UP with. I mean compete with, directly, for jobs.

ford wrote:

An automated factory can cost over $1 billion dollars. There are not many companies that could actually afford that price tag. So, your iPhone and iPad are assembled largely by hand. We are also going to have to admit that man is a long way off from real AI, so anything that requires creativity is going to remain human providence. Further, there will always be a time lag between the creation of an industry and the automation of that same industry.

So? The mere fact that only a select few elite will be able to afford them should cause alarms. They will afford the factory, which is only an initial investment. At the beginning both them and other lesser companies will have similarly priced products, even though one produces them much more efficiently and with lower costs. That's because it has to recoup some of its investment in the factory.

Over a few years (less than a decade for sure) it will completely kill off any competition, and that is exactly what I'm talking about. Producing goods more efficiently means they are priced lower. Consumers will buy only from the guys who were smart to invest in automation. The others will go bankrupt. Back to the point -> only a very small minority will still have money, the others will slave off just to survive.

Also this time lag is increasingly less and less... at an exponential rate. That's the point. You can't rely on history from 100 years ago, the fact is that automation and costs are going down exponentially, especially for things that require processing power instead of materials. You guys just don't understand the power of exponential growth, that's why you can't predict such a bad future as I do.

You think, well, it took 100 years to fully automate some jobs from 100 years ago, so it will be another 100 before we automate new jobs created today. Which is completely false, I give it at most 20 years, if that. And after that it's going to get even worse, perhaps 5 to 10 years for the tiny amount of new jobs we'll still have (the 1%). Then those get automated.

Eventually, within 30-50 years or so we'll end up with jobs being automated within a month after being created. That's the power of exponential growth.

The other funny thing is that all factories, whether automated or not, still require a lot of machines and tools. And those are what cost the most.

ford wrote:

Now, the hard economic reality of your socialist dream... WHERE DO YOU THINK THAT THE MONEY FOR UBI WILL COME FROM?!

It's just redistributed. And no, the entire world will have to convert to this system. Where would rich people go, the moon?

It's simply about redistributing the technology and assets (i.e robots) for the entire human race, and not just the handful who had the privilege to invest into them before they became a big thing.

It's not even about money itself. Money is just a means to accomplish that. Because if you get free money per month from the rich (taxed), it's simply redistributing some of their robot assets to everyone for free. Kinda like utopia.

After all, robots should be working for humanity, not for one person who invested into them. It might surprise you, but less than 1% right now have the privilege to invest into robots. And those are the richest. Why should the richest RIGHT NOW be the only ones who can enjoy the future?

I think you're making a few very large assumptions about automation. First, while many things can be automated, the difficulty in achieving that automation is quite high. Second, you are assuming (at least from what I am understanding) that we are getting close to having machines with human level intelligence. Humans do not even fully understand how our own consciousness is achieved, and as such it is unlikely that anyone is going to achieve the creation of AI in our lifetimes. This limits automation to those tasks that are simple and repetitive for the near future. As for wealth redistribution, we will simply need to not continue that conversation as I personally do not feel that anyone has the right to take from another without consent (that is, I view taxation as theft), and as such don't think we'll reach any kind of agreement.

As for not predicting a bad future, I think we are going to see some pretty bad times. Economically, the world is teetering on a massive depression. Technologically, most software is so bad that many of the systems that the world depends upon are constantly at risk of failure, so sysadmins have to scramble around like crazy trying to prop everything up (source: was sysadmin for many years at multiple large organizations). So, I totally agree that things will get bad, but I highly doubt that the failures will be due to machines replacing every single job on Earth.

We should also be aware that there are many places (Latin America, Africa, much of Asia) that are completely under-developed. People in the West will have more than ample opportunity to work in markets that are still rolling out the infrastructure and technologies that will help those areas become more economically stable, and there will also be ample training opportunities.

Over a few years (less than a decade for sure) it will completely kill off any competition, and that is exactly what I'm talking about. Producing goods more efficiently means they are priced lower. Consumers will buy only from the guys who were smart to invest in automation. The others will go bankrupt. Back to the point -> only a very small minority will still have money, the others will slave off just to survive.

Products are always changing. So new products are introduced by smaller companies and older products fall out of favour and the factories close or need to get rebuilt for new things. If the devices and products we use were forever unchanging then perhaps what you suggest would happen, but in the real world things are always changing. Also you can't automate everything, there is always space for things out of the scope of automated factories.

Furs wrote:

You guys just don't understand the power of exponential growth, that's why you can't predict such a bad future as I do.

I'm sure many of us "guys" here do understand exponentials very well. But many will disagree with you on how the future will progress, not on the end point of some mathematical model.

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